The Floramers of Tamriel: Syndus's Nightmare
by dragonsandfireflies
Summary: This is the second book of the Floramers of Tamriel series (you do not need to read the first book to be able to follow this one). In this tale, we meet Syndus, who is living in southern Cyrodiil during the events of Skyrim. For the past two years, he has been attempting to hide from a curse by indulging in alcohol and skooma, but how much longer can he go before it overcomes him?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Sweat rolled down my face as I shot up from the bare patch of ground I used as a bed. My black hair was plastered to my golden skin and I knew my golden-brown eyes must've looked wild in the early dawn's light. I hadn't had a good night's rest for over two years. It all started that one damned night on the hunting trip with father. The biggest wolf I had ever seen attacked our camp, shredded my father's body, and wrapped its jaws around my waist.

Soon after my sister and I put our father in the ground, I felt the moons calling to me for the first time. I had no idea what was happening to my body. Parts of that night are engraved into my memory forever. Other parts I can't recall regardless of how hard I try; most likely I wouldn't want to remember what happened.

I can remember storming out of the house in a rage at some small comment my frustrating sister said. I could feel my blood pumping to every fiber of my being. As I stood outside, I could hear the voices in the houses around me in Gweden Village. It was so loud that I could feel a headache coming on and it only added to the intense emotions building within me. I became so enraged at the noise that I kicked a barrel of salted fish over and ran into the woods.

As soon as my feet began crunching the leaves, my mind felt better. However, my body grew even tenser. It wasn't my nerves anymore; my muscles began to bunch and my intestines felt as if they were shifting under my skin. I continued to move further into the woods and soon began to rip my own clothes off to ease the pain. Then I fell onto all fours because my feet could no longer hold me. I looked at my hands and they appeared to be deformed and were changing in front of my eyes.

I blacked out soon afterwards and can now only recall flashes. I remember running on all fours. I remember the taste of blood in my mouth. I remember waking up nude in the forest. The next morning I found my clothes at the edge of the woods near the village and then I walked straight to the pub.

After months of me drinking and constantly being on edge, even my once a month hunting trips – which happened to coincide with the time of the full moons – couldn't convince my sister to let me stay in the house anymore. She finally kicked me out after I hit her across the face during a heated argument. I grabbed my hunting gear and began walking through the forest. I knew I deserved it, but I didn't want to admit it to her or even myself.

I walked as far from civilization as I could and when my legs couldn't carry me any further, I threw down my things and undressed. I didn't walk on two legs again for three weeks. I tracked bears and I shredded man and mer alike. When I finally returned to my Altmer form, I walked to Anvil and sated my other appetites at the local inn.

I remained at the Count's Arms when I had the coin and slept on benches when I didn't. I picked up odd jobs to try and get by. I learned how to take down pray in a way that kept the skin in good condition and made most of my coin selling pelts. However, I still had a drinking issue and at one point even picked up a skooma habit in order to hide from the change. It helped keep the need to change into beast form at bay, but I soon realized the urges it caused could be arguably worse. The throes of withdraw sent me into my beast form and I ran from Anvil as a wolf.

This change was nearly as bad as my first, except this time I could remember it all. I took down man and beast that crossed my path. Day and night began to blur together and I lost track of how long I stayed in beast form. Finally, one morning I woke up in my sweaty flesh and I found myself nude in the dirt. Across from me sat a tiny, blonde Bosmer woman adorned in animal skins with a bear head hood.

"First change?" She asked in a harder voice than I had expected to come from such a soft face. She tossed me some deer hide to cover myself with.

"What do you know of it?" I asked gruffly. She pointed to the scar that stretched across my abdomen and then lifted her animal skins to reveal a similar scar that wrapped around her thigh.

I nod to her in acknowledgment that we share the same curse and then grunt, "No."

"Then you _really_ owe me for cleaning up that mess you made. You should know better than to leave a trail of bodies behind. Even if you don't live in these parts, you shouldn't screw it up for the rest of us." When I only grunted my apologies, she continued, "Do you know they put out a bounty for a werewolf in Anvil? Am I wrong to assume that was you?"

"I've been going through some…difficulties," I tried to shake off her questions as I wrapped the skin she provided around my waist.

"If you don't get over it soon you'll have the Companions down off their mountain onto all of our hides."

"The who?"

"Seriously? How long have you been a wolf for?"

"How is it any of your damn business?" I snap.

"Obviously not long enough to get control of your emotions," she muttered. "Do you do this sort of rampage-and-kill-all-the-villagers thing often?"

I took a deep breath trying to calm myself. I couldn't stop the growl that came from my throat as I said, "No."

"I can smell the lie on you. Are you a drunk?" She asked, tilting her head to the side in question. "Skooma addict?"

"Thanks for the furs, thanks for the help, now get lost!" I shouted at the small elf.

"I think I better stick around," she purred challengingly. "If you skooma-wolf again I'll have to put you down. I can't have the Companions coming down here. There's too much on the line."

Curiosity got the better of me and I asked, "What's on the line?"

"Oh, let's see here…_my life_ for starters. The Companions are a bunch of ice-veined Nords who believe any wolf outside of their precious Circle is a feral dog. When our kind is at risk of being exposed by, oh say, a skooma-wolf like you, they'll descend from their damned frozen peaks in Skyrim and exterminate all werewolves in the area simply for fun."

"They sound like a jolly bunch," I muttered.

"Again I ask, how have you not heard of them? Wait…" She stood up and stalked towards me, reminding me more of a hunting saber cat rather than a wolf. She placed her body uncomfortably close to mine and looked up into my eyes. I couldn't help but avoid eye contact with her unsettling black Bosmer eyes. She was very short, barely coming up to my chest. She grabbed my long chin with nimble fingers and forced me to look at her, "Am I the first wolf you've met?"

"Of course not," I said defensively. The tiny, ferocious woman made me uncomfortable and I didn't want her to view any of my weaknesses.

"Lie. You need to stop doing that. I can smell it!" She hissed. "How long since you were bitten?"

I realized resistance was futile. She wasn't going to let me out of her sight until the skooma withdrawals – which were beginning to set in again – were completely over, and she wasn't going to let me get through it in silence. "Two years. It was a hunting trip. It killed my father," I said it all in a blank monotone, not wanting to dwell on the pain that still came up when I thought about it.

"Two years and no one to help you? How did you know anything?"

Trying to ignore the shaking in my hands, I explained, "Books. The first semi-sober day I had after my first change, I traveled to Anvil and scoured their libraries."

"Seriously?" She tilted her head in question again and then shook it pityingly. I didn't want to be pitied. I wanted to stand up for myself – anything not to look weak – but sweat had started pouring down my face and my muscles began to cramp up.

Seeing the changes in my demeanor, the woman turned her back and grabbed something behind a large rock. She rolled out bedding and said, "Here, lie down. I'll go fill my water skin for you. Don't you dare change while I'm gone. I won't hesitate to put you down."

I did as I was told and when she returned with the water, she poured some over my head before offering it to me to drink. Some point during this time of withdrawal, before I passed out from pain and exhaustion, she told me her name was Lilissandra.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Just as every other morning, I woke up with my body drenched in sweat. Lilissandra lay a few feet away, curled into a small ball on a few furs she was using as a bedroll. We had been out in the woods for a few weeks now. She would go hunt and fish in her human form and constantly keep watch over me. The withdrawal symptoms had barely relented over the time she cared for me.

Lilissandra caused me to jump when her throaty morning voice came from her unmoving body, "It should pass soon, I promise."

"You've been saying that for a week," I growled. The body aches were already setting in. "Lilissandra, you keep telling me that you don't want me to change, but it's been a long time since I've taken a hit and the moons are nearly full again. I'll _have to_ change. I'll feel as if my skin is ripping off if I don't."

She sat up and narrowed her dark eyes at me as if evaluating my level of sanity. Without answering me, she hopped off her bedroll and grabbed the water skin we had been sharing. She was a few paces away when she finally said, "I'll think about it."

I stood up as quickly as my sore body allowed; she was right, the pains were decreasing. "You won't have a choice, I'm going to change. I'm fine now, I promise," I pleaded. Part of me wondered if the discomfort I was still feeling had more to do with me avoiding the change more than it did with the skooma leaving my system. I found my steps behind her and began to follow her to the water's edge.

Suddenly, she stopped , swung around, and punched me hard in the side of the face. I stood in shock for a moment and then spit the blood out of my mouth. I looked down at her hard face and wondered at its lack of emotions.

"Yeah, we'll change together tonight," she said calmly and then turned back to the water.

I grabbed her arm in order to make her stop and look at me. "What the hell was that?" I asked and spit blood again.

"I was checking to see how well you kept your calm. Good news: you're no longer a skooma-wolf."

"Why won't you tell me why you're so afraid of 'skooma-wolves'?"

"For the last time, I don't want to talk about it, Syndus," she hissed. Despite my overwhelming curiosity, my aching jaw convinced me to let her walk away.

It was another miserably long day. Lilissandra let me go fishing with her to pass the time. She told me she had been planning on tracking some deer, but she knew that I couldn't sneak very well in my current state. She didn't fish the same as I was taught to do. Her idea of "fishing" was alternately spearing the fish with a sharped stick and catching them with her bare hands.

When the sun finally sunk behind the distant horizon and the two moons hung heavily above us, my skin began to crawl with the need to change. Lilissandra, who had been putting it off as long as she could, finally gave in. Standing up and taking off the pelts she used as clothing, she looked at me expectantly.

"Come on, Syndus. I've seen it before," she complained when I seemed hesitant. I knew it was true, but the last time she hadn't been standing in front of me nude in the moonlight. I stood and turned by back towards her, taking off the deer pelt. I would really need to get my hands on some clothes soon. I was beginning to miss the city.

Since my first change, I learned how to speed the process but it was still just as painful. It seemed almost moments later that we were both in our wolf form. She was significantly smaller than me and had lighter fur. However, she moved quicker and had ferocity in her eyes that managed to make me both secure and nervous to hunt beside her.

In attempts to get my strength back up, we took down a couple of small deer first. It wasn't long after that I caught the scent of men and Lilissandra gave me a warning growl. I simply wanted to check it out to see if I could get some clothing and other goods off of them. Obviously afraid that I was turning out to be a crazed skooma-wolf after all, she stepped in front of me when I began to head towards the scent. I gave her a huff and calmly walked around her in attempts to show her I still had my wits about me.

We moved calmly and quietly until we had the camp within our sights. Bandits. Two of them sat around the fire and bragged about their recent conquest. She nudged me in my arm and I knew I had her permission to move forward. I targeted the man and leapt into the camp.

I knocked him to the ground with one slice across the back, trying my best to avoid much damage to the armor. Then I killed him by biting into his neck. I sat back and watched as Lilissandra shredded the other bandit into pieces. I secretly hoped she would try and save the garments so she could join me in returning to civilization, but it didn't seem as if she had the same interest as me.

My bloodlust and hunger were sated, along with my need to walk in wolf-form. I stretched out next to the bandits' warm fire and allowed my body to change back to Altmer. For the first time in over a month, my body felt at peace. The only aching was a pleasurable one from muscle use. I felt as if I were going to doze off into a restful sleep until I looked over at Lilissandra.

The tiny elf had changed back as well and was half crouched at the edge of the camp. She seemed as if she was half expecting more bandits to show, but she was also peeking at me curiously with her dark eyes. She had been explaining to me the past few weeks that I should be able to smell emotions on people. I had noticed odd smells around people before, but was far too drunk to make any connection. With a sober mind, however, the scent of an aroused woman was unmistakable. It was then that I realized that there were still more needs that needed to be sated.

She was my caregiver and, surprisingly, my friend. I didn't want to ruin our relationship with irrational sex. But she stood and began prowling towards me. The wolf that was still going rampant in my blood went crazy. Forgetting my exhaustion, I pulled myself off the ground, lifted the tiny woman up, and pinned her against the nearest tree.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

I slid on the hide armor that I looted off the bandit. It was slightly shredded in the back but not too badly damaged. I knew it looked awkward on my tall, thin frame, but I had no other choice. I sat back down next to Lilissandra, who was starting to stir in one of the bandit's bedrolls.

"How'd you get bit?" I asked, running two fingers over her light pink scars that stretched across one of her thighs.

"That's a story best left untold," she replied flatly, tickling the place that a similar jagged scar adorned my abdomen. Mine still looked a bright, glaring red next to her's, making me wonder how long ago she was bitten. Lilissandra always forced me to tell her anything she wanted to know about my life and past. However, she still remained an enigma to me. She refused to tell me anything about herself.

I sighed, knowing when to push my luck with her. I decided to search the rest of the camp. I found a decent amount of foot, a knapsack, a couple potions, and a decent bit of gold. I was most excited about what I found in a battered wooden chest. I opened it up to find a plain tunic that I was able to layer over the hide greaves I was wearing, as well as a simple dress I'd be able to give Lilissandra. Whether or not she would be willing to wear it would be another story.

"Seriously?" I heard her hard voice behind me and saw her tiny hand snatch the dress out of my hands. I turned around to see her draping it over her tiny, nude frame. Her black eyes looked at me suspiciously and she asked simply, "Why?"

"Wouldn't you want to come into the city with me?" I asked hopefully. My gut twisted with nerves at the thought of her refusing and then leaving my side.

I heard a tiny growl come from her throat, but to my surprise she said she would think about it. She slung the dress over her shoulder and, remaining nude, walked out of the bandit camp. "Let's go get the rest of our things."

I tossed all of my loot into the knapsack and followed the Wood Elf, admiring my view of Lilissandra from behind.

When we returned to our original camp, Lilissandra put on the dress. It hung loosely over her tiny frame, so she pulled a strip of leather out of her pack and tied it around her waist. She then caused me to gape as I watched her take a dagger and cut the dress so it barely covered her rear end. She slid on her fur boots and hide bracers, and topped the whole new outfit off with her bear head hood. I was beginning to think that no matter what we wore, they wouldn't let this crazy elf into any city.

As if she knew what I was thinking, she looked up and gave me a mischievous smile. "Is that what you had in mind?"

I couldn't help but let out a little laugh at her and say, "Not exactly, but I can't wait to see the look on the guards' faces." I watched as she began gathering her things into a makeshift bag. I hesitantly asked, "So, you're coming with me after all?"

"I've decided that I'm not comfortable letting you out of my site yet," she explained. "How am I supposed to trust you not to get back onto the skooma as soon as you're finished getting pissed drunk at the tavern?"

"You can trust me, but I'm not going to argue with your company," I grinned at my friend.

We finished gathering our things and each ate some food I pilfered from the bandits. Soon, we were on our way to Anvil. For the first time, I learned that I had wandered halfway to Kvatch during my time as a "skooma-wolf".

After a good deal of walking, we finally reached Anvil at sunset. The shock and confusion on the guards' faces were better than I had expected, but they waved us into the city anyways. It seemed we were only a few steps passed the gate when a courier came running up to me.

"I been looking for you," he began, almost breathlessly. "Got something I'm supposed to deliver. Your hands only."

I took the sealed parchment from him. "Anything else?"

"Nope, sorry, nothing," he shrugged and then hurried along his way.

I opened the letter. After reading every word – twice – I stood in shock for a moment. I finally snapped out of it when I felt Lilissandra's hand on my arm. I looked down into her curious black eyes and sighed, saying, "I need a drink."

"I'm not sure if that's such a great idea…"

"This letter is from a kid named Raphelm. He's from my home village and is best friends with my baby sister. He wrote to let me know that dragons –yes, I said _dragons_ – attacked the village and now Emerald is missing."

"But…dragons went extinct a long time ago…"

"Yeap."

"And…this kid has no idea where your sister could be?"

"Nope."

"How about we get a drink?"


End file.
